Defenders of the Realm preview pics

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/649329/defenders-of-the-realm?size=medium
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/655062/defenders-of-the-realm

Ack, how do you get images to post here??

Those are just normal links you have in the image brackets. The address you need should be for the picture's actual address. Right-click on the pic, choose 'properties' then copy and paste the address you see there.

Wow. Could they have made it look any more like the Talisman box?

I think the art is going to be a big selling point. Especially if you played a lot of RPGs in the 90's.

I think you guys are really going to like this game. Its med-light wieght and has that "I'm going to go forth and kick a lot of ass" feel. The crux of the game is that there are more things happening than you can take care of and so you have to choose which things are the most threatening. Its a distant relative of Pandemic but it really doesn't feel like that. Also, its a lot harder to orchestrate moves so you don't feel like some one can 'solve' the game.

Steve"DefendersFan"Avery

The art is cool and very oldschool computer RPG indeed. Gonna be on the look out for this game. The use of comic sans as a font though is totally amateurish.

Interesting, and it's from the designer of Arkham Horror, although I've never played the original edition... but it gives me hope because AH one of the few adventure games aside from Magic Realm that I really enjoy. It also sounds like a more complex version of Ghost Stories which I think would be cool.

mjl1783 wrote:

Wow. Could they have made it look any more like the Talisman box?

Stephen Avery wrote:

I think the art is going to be a big selling point. Especially if you played a lot of RPGs in the 90's.

Steve"DefendersFan"Avery

LilRed wrote:

The art is cool and very oldschool computer RPG indeed. Gonna be on the look out for this game. The use of comic sans as a font though is totally amateurish.

Interesting to see where everyone's coming from. I associate Elmore's art directly with the Dragonlance book covers from the 80's and 90's, he also did many for D&D modules and they obviously were reused for other products such as the TSR computer games.

Anyways, sounds noteworthy. When's the game due?

I haven't heard of a firm relaease date but I think they're angling for this summer. Now if They would only make a tank top wearing barbarian...

Steve"Tank top wearing Barbarian"Avery

Stephen Avery wrote:

I think the art is going to be a big selling point. Especially if you played a lot of RPGs in the 90's.

Hell yes, and the 80s.

I was thinking about this the other day, how the various D&D lines back in the day had a feel all their own due to the main illustrator for each line. Elmore - Dragonlance, Caldwell - Forgotten Realms, Brom - Dark Sun, etc.

To me, all the D&D art nowadays looks the same. "dungeon-punk" or whatever pseudo-anime crap they call it. Even the upcoming Dark Sun books look to have this same style.

Anyway, I was a big fan of Elmore back in the day and one of my favorite Dragon*Con memories is of getting hammered with he and his crew at the hotel bar while playing some "Spin the Jimmy" wheel he drew up that day. Apparently this "Jimmy" was a friend of his and you spun him to see what bar task you had to do. Elmore always had some buff dude and a bunch of chicks hanging around as well.

I'll probably be in for this game.

Mr. Bistro wrote:

Those are just normal links you have in the image brackets. The address you need should be for the picture's actual address. Right-click on the pic, choose 'properties' then copy and paste the address you see there.

Ah, duh. Of course... I should have noticed the distinct lack of ".jpg" or ".png" at the end of the link. It was late... Thanks for posting those, though.

That is a busty cleric.

The title font is pretty bad as well...

I've played an early version of this game pretty extensively...Richard used to bring it into AGF all the time but it was called ASSAULT OF THE DARK LORD back then.

The good news is that it is (or was, when I was playing it a lot) a really good one. It's co-op, and it has a pretty neat system for tracking how the bad guys take over various lands. They're all arranged around a central kingdom, and as tracks fill up, they turn dark. Eventually, the bad guys come knocking on the kingdom's door. There was also a questing mechanic, dungeons, and of course the classic "fives and sixes" Richard Launius dice system.

It's ironic that they got Larry Elmore on board for this...Richard's prototypes are always done in MS Word (!!!) and he usually grabs artwork from the internet. This game ALWAYS had a ton of Larry Elmore artwork. I think it looks terrible because I don't care for his style, but that being said it definitely has a 1980s high fantasy feel to it.

It should be good- it's great to see Richard finally get one of his MANY prototypes published.

It's decent artwork, I definitely agree about the resemblance to Larry Elmore's work. However, that cleric chick looks like she overspent on the breast implants, and started out working strip clubs before she got religion.